County Championship 2025. Division 1. Somerset v Yorkshire 8^th, 9^th, 10^th and 11^th September Taunton.

Somerset. T. Kohler-Cadmore, A.M. Vaughan, T.A. Lammonby, J.E.K. Rew (w), T.B. Abell, L.P. Goldsworthy, L. Gregory (c), B.G.F Green,  K.L. Aldridge, J.H. Davey, M.J. Leach.

Yorkshire. A. Lyth, F.J. Bean, M.A. Agarwal, J.H. Wharton, J.M. Bairstow (c) (w), M.L. Revis, G.C.H. Hill, D.M. Bess, J.A. Thompson, D.T. Moriarty, C. White.

Toss. Yorkshire elected to field.

First day – Armageddon  

The day began in glorious sunshine with barely a cloud in the sky. It ended, three hours early, in a barrage of ear-shattering thunderclaps, streaks of lightning across the northern sky and a deluge sufficient for Noah to raise his umbrella. The ground was still bathed in sunshine as the thunder rolled in like a creeping artillery barrage and the players and umpires beat a retreat to the Pavilion. The public address announcer spoke grimly of a thunderstorm in the ‘vicinity’ of Taunton advancing on the ground and advised all spectators to take cover. For the first time in my memory the stands emptied as if they were the decks of a sinking ship with the passengers heading for the boats. There are no lifeboats at the Cooper Associates County Ground but every spectator who had been in the open stands had within minutes found refuge somewhere.

With most of the seats in the top of the Trescothick Pavilion taken, those of us up there looked out upon the strange sight of every stand without a roof being completely empty, and the two with roofs being virtually full. Those with balconies contained groups of people peering out from behind open doors. The entire human contents of the ground were under cover. Except for six ground staff methodically pulling plastic sheeting from beyond the boundary and covering the pitch, the rest of the square and the bowlers’ run ups. The thunder still rumbled, but the sun still shone, and the only rain in sight was forming a dark veil across the Quantocks.

Then those streaks of lightning began to shoot across the northern sky, brilliant against a background of darkening clouds forming above the Quantocks and beyond the flats and the Lord Ian Botham Stand. After one particularly brilliant streak, the man next to me began to count aloud. He reached five before the thunder crashed as if directly over our heads. “One mile away,” the quiet assessment. And then, with the ground staff’s task complete, the rain began to fall on the roof above us. It sounded like a sprinkling at first, then a scattering of nails, then like all the occupants of heaven demanding to be let in. The deluge was visible in the air now and becoming progressively heavier as pools formed on the sheeting covers. Before long the rain was torrential with the thunder still rumbling. Soon pools began to form off the sides of the covers. The crowd just sat and watched, for there was nothing else anyone with any sense could do as the ground was inundated before their eyes.

Finally, after the last clap of thunder and the easing of the rain, a thirty-minute wait before the ground staff were permitted to enter the outfield. And then the long, slow job of mopping up. Then another heavy shower, mercifully short, and no thunder or streaks of lightning. And finally, the umpire’s inspection, one of the longest I can recall, and the inevitable abandonment of play for the day before the disappointment of the long trudge home.

Between the sunny start and the sodden end, we had three hours of routine Championship cricket. There was none of the extreme tension, cacophonous cheering, exuberant around-the-ground four and six card waving or mountainous sixes which had brought that tumultuous T20 quarter-final against the Birmingham Bears and Sean Dickson’s incredible 26-ball 71 farewell-to-Taunton innings to a spectacular penultimate ball, winning conclusion less than 48-hours before in front of a capacity eight and a half thousand crowd. As the first morning of this match unfolded there was a crucial attacking innings from Tom Kohler-Cadmore, a perfectly judged anchoring one from James Rew, and a good opening spell of bowling from Yorkshire’s George Hill, split between the two ends of the ground. When the heavens intervened with their visitation of wrath, Somerset had made a strong start at 155 for 3 from 42 overs. But the nature of Championship cricket is such that, after two overs more than that T20 quarter-final had lasted, it was too soon to say whether that score formed the foundations for an extended struggle, a dominant victory or a dreary stalemate. The two extremes of cricket in the 21st century.

The day had begun with Somerset losing the toss in the face of a green pitch and bright sunshine with only a few high, white clouds to break up the glorious expanse of blue above our heads. Somerset began without Craig Overton, rested ahead of T20 Finals Day at the end of the week. Ben Green, one of Somerset’s most effective T20 players, with an explosive bat and suffocating, wicket-taking bowling replaced him. He had though proved a less effective player in Championship cricket and would be off to Leicestershire at the end of the season. The crowd, to my eye, topped fifteen hundred and the top of the Trescothick Pavilion was brightly chatty from the start.

The Somerset innings began with a gruelling few overs for Archie Vaughan. The second over of the innings, bowled by Hill from the River End, began with a four from Vaughan, turned through midwicket to the Somerset Stand. The remainder of the over though consisted of him being beaten onto the pads, leaving twice, missing a swishing drive at a wide ball and edging the final ball short of second slip. Similarly, in Hill’s second over, there was a boundary guided past the slips to the covers store, the bat was beaten twice and a play and a miss. Hill’s third over brought an uppish cover drive for two and, from the fourth ball, an edge off a defensive prod, caught by Jonny Bairstow behind the stumps. Vaughan simply tucked his bat under his arm and walked off as if he had been awaiting the inevitable. “He hadn’t changed ends and he’d been in trouble all the time,” the comment of one Trescothick Pavilion watcher. Somerset 20 for 1. Vaughan 10.

Tom Lammonby replaced Vaughan and followed him back to the Pavilion four overs later. He began with four slips waiting to pounce. He looked more secure than Vaughan but never looked settled. His eighth ball, from Hill, defeated his defensive stroke and left his off stump flat on the ground. He left the field of play to the usual round of polite, slightly embarrassed applause which usually accompanies the departure of someone dismissed at the start of their innings. Somerset 30 for 2. Lammonby 1. James Rew edged his fourth ball, from Hill, but as in the first over of the day the ball fell short of the slips.

At the other end, we had watched a typically robust, if equally shaky start from Tom Kohler-Cadmore. In the first over of the day, from Jack White bowling from the Trescothick Pavilion End, he had been beaten onto the pads twice and, like Vaughan, edged short of second slip. In the third over, a straight drive for four was sandwiched between two beaten bats. In White’s third over, the fifth of the day, there had been a huge missed drive, but by the time of Lammonby’s dismissal Kohler-Cadmore had reached 17 and was beginning to settle.

When Rew joined him the partnership of the day began. Kohler-Cadmore drove the last ball Of Dom Bess’s curiously early opening over, bowled from the River End, straight back into the Lord Ian Botham Stand. Against Hill, Rew added four from an edge, again short of, and this time through the slips, before adding a wild missed drive of his own. It was a bare-knuckle ride watching from the stands as Kohler-Cadmore drove Bess over long off for six and off the back foot though the covers to the Priory Bridge Road Stand for four. “That ball was tripe,” the comment. The next was an exact replica and the result the same. It was followed by Bairstow walking up the pitch to talk to Bess before a miscued drive from Kohler-Cadmore brought two more, the ball being knocked back from the rope by the chasing fielder. Sixteen from the over and a more respectable looking score of 59 for 2, particularly in the conditions.

My note says batting didn’t look easy and the bowlers continued to present problems. Two maidens followed Kohler-Cadmore’s assault on Bess. Hill beat him twice in an over and Bess, keeping things tighter after Bairstow’s intervention, beat Rew, almost bowling him in the process. It didn’t stop a periodic flash of aggression from Kohler-Cadmore who went to his fifty off Bess from 55 balls with a cut past the slips before missing the next ball with a pull. The fifty partnership came up in the next over, from 68 balls, before just two runs came in the next four overs. “Rew hasn’t really got in, has he,” one Somerset supporter mused. But he had been quietly rotating the strike and had added the occasional boundary before, as lunch approached, pulling both Jordan Thompson’s and Matthew Revis’s medium pace to the boundary. In the final over he leaned neatly into a smooth on drive which ran to the Priory Bridge Road boundary for four to a shout of, “Shot!” and a comment of, “He’s in now!”

Kohler-Cadmore meanwhile was suffering fewer narrow escapes, although a boundary came off Bess courtesy of an edge wide of the only slip and a missed cut brought a few gasps. A drive with an open face ran just fine of backward point to the boundary, and a perfectly safe lofted drive through the covers to the Caddick Pavilion boundary for two took Somerset to lunch on 114 for 2. Kohler-Cadmore’s innings, bare-knuckle ride or not, was a tonic for Somerset supporters after the departure of Lammonby at 30 for 2. Kohler-Cadmore, perhaps aided by the fortune often afforded the brave, had reached 66 from 89 balls; and Rew, perhaps more ‘in’ than he had been given credit for, was on 31 from 67. After being put in on a green pitch, if in less than encouraging overhead conditions for the bowlers, and with Kohler-Cadmore having spent much of the morning toying with the nerves of Somerset supporters, those I spoke to were happy to settle for 114 for 2.

As my lunchtime circumnavigation, in bright sunshine, drifted into the afternoon, the resting of Overton was a point of discussion with views split between accepting the importance of resting a key player, perhaps the key player, before T20 Finals Day, and arguing for the primacy of the Championship. As we talked, the players returned and Rew opened the face to drive to deep backward point on the Somerset Stand boundary for four. “That is a true Rew stroke,” someone drooled and it had indeed been a thing of beauty. By early afternoon, the crowd looked like it had grown to nearer two thousand than fifteen hundred, perhaps aided by Somerset still having a theoretical chance of the Championship and perhaps by the impending season’s end.

With me back in my seat, Kohler-Cadmore continued his mixture of sumptuous strokes and heart-stopping misses, although as the day wore on the misses were fewer and farther between. A leg before wicket appeal from Thompson was immediately followed by an on drive straight of midwicket to the Somerset Stand, “Oh, good shot,” said one spectator. A dismissive back foot cover drive through midwicket followed in Thompson’s next over but, finally, one aggressive stroke too many and a cut sent an edge to Hill at slip. “He’s gone,” the instant comment, “A bit more bounce.” Somerset 147 for 3, Kohler-Cadmore 76 from 110 balls and a partnership with Rew of 117 in 32 overs.

Banks of cloud were now appearing over the Brendon Hills and were advancing from behind the flats in good order towards the ground. Rew meanwhile had reached fifty from 91 balls with a back foot drive through midwicket off Thompson and soon drove through point for a single, the ball running along the creases. Tom Abell, who had joined Rew at the loss of Kohler-Cadmore began with an altogether different game to the opener. He did not score until his 14^th ball and then with a single pushed off Revis to point. It brought pantomime cheers and a comment of, “He’s finally got one.” The comment and the cheers were perhaps an indicator of the influence of T20 on cricket spectators, for it was not so long before that a batter not scoring until his 14^th ball in the Championship would have been commonplace. And so, the world, and attitudes move on.

And then, that spectacle of Armageddon in the skies. By the time the rain began falling, the lighting had already driven the players and umpires from the field in accordance with safety regulations for lightning, although the sun was still in full lordship over the ground. They had not long gone however when the full force of the storm enveloped the ground and pools of water began to appear. It was quickly apparent to all of us sheltering under the wing roof towards the rear of the elevated level of the Trescothick Pavilion that there would be no more play. Cricket though has its procedures rooted in more than two centuries of methodical tradition and, where the management of weather interruptions is concerned, the primacy of ensuring as far as possible a fair and equitable application of regulations across the country. Accordingly, with the requirements of the regulations being followed to the letter, play was not formally called off for some time. For those present however, it may not be the cricket that leaves a mark on the mind, but memories of that incredible display of nature’s power which few around me could recall being matched in their lifetimes.

Close. Somerset 155 for 3.